President Tembo Mbeki's idea of Government of National Unity (GNU) is laughable. Mugabe has ruined the country and all he cares about now is that he and his cronies should be allowed to enjoy their loot. He has just plunged the whole country into an orgy of lawlessness and murder just to maintain the status quo. GNU is simply to appease him. For 30 years Ziimbabweans have done nothing but appease him and he has done nothing but behave like a spoilt brat! We now demand and rightly deserve better!
Best way forward for Zimbabwe now is to have a UN Supervised Interim Gvt tasked to: 1) produce a new constitution 2) provide immediate economic help and relief 3) investigate past human rights violations 4) supervise fresh elections
The Interim Gvt will have Zimbabweans from all sectors of Zimbabwean society and will last six months (cooling off period for all political players).
The UN must act quickly, decisively and firmly, especially with Mugabe and those still seeking to appease him.
A military invasion of Zimbabwe by SADC or the UN is unrealistic; none of those bodies have the appetite for such action. Indeed such a extreme move would only flatter Mugabe; he would certainly prefer to die fighting rather than from the economic noose round his frail neck.
The Zimbabwe economy is in total melt down; there is absolutely nothing Mugabe himself can do to slow down let alone stop the nose dive. In the past he had a raft of economic policies promising economic reforms and recovery including World Bank sponsored Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes (ESAP) in the 1990s. Of course the economic recovery never materialised, the economic slid gathered in pace and speed. In the last five years Mugabe has said less and less when the economic figures have got worse and worse. The Z$ was on par with US$ in 1980 and today one green buck will buy a staging Z$ 22 trillion. The devaluation is fuelled by the run away inflation rate of 165 000%. This is an economy in free fall with terrible economic consequences on the ordinary people.
In Zimbabwe the ordinary people have learnt to make do without many, many things and forced to revert to a subsistent life style. Life expectancy has tumbled from over 60 years in 1980 to 34 years today. Mugabe and those close to him have done well; they control the nation’s key resources such as land and they have unfettered access to the scare foreign currency- the Achilles heel of the Mugabe regime.
The Zimbabwe economy now generates very little foreign currency, the last biggest earner, tobacco, was “killed” with the violent seizure of the white-owned commercial farms of 2000 to 2002. The biggest foreign currency earner today is probably the Diaspora dollar.
Zimbabweans outside the country are sending back home as much as US$1 million a day. The recipient of the foreign currency are forced to buy Z$, all local transactions must be in Z$. The regime soaks up all the foreign currency by printing more and more Z$ of greater and greater face value. It is the regime’s only answer to all its problems – printing more and higher denomination Z$.
The ruling elite have creamed off most of the foreign currency, by buying it from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe at official exchange rates and sell it back on the black market at 800 times. With such rich picking they can afford regular shopping trip outside Zimbabwe and, in the midst of abject grinding poverty they live a life of unparalleled luxury. The regime has its own parallel system for sourcing and paying for keep commodities such as fuel to keep its terror machine well oiled as is evidenced by rapid and efficient deployment of war veterans and militia in the last two months.
The regime’s appetite for more and more riches knows no bounds. It is matched by the regime’s collective will to hang on to their loot at all cost.
Cut off the flow of foreign currency and the Mugabe regime will collapse.
It is within the powers of the Zimbabweans outside the country, the majority of whom hate the regime with a burning passion for what it was done to the country and to them. They have the economic muscle to force Mugabe out of office but, unfortunately, lack the mental agility- common sense really- to do so. Of course if we could think even half as much as we hate Zimbabwe would certainly not be in the total mess it is in today. Mugabe has used the blacks’ inert hatred of the whites to hide his own evil acts, for example, so often and get away with it every time- it is simply amazing how the whole nation can be so easily and rapidly duped!
Zimbabweans may boost of having some of the highest literacy figures in Sub-Sahara Africa but what good is all our paper qualifications without common sense!
So although Zimbabweans could on their own bring about change, could have done so a long time ago, the sad reality is they will not. If there is going to be change then, the outside world will have to step in and help. The first call will be on SADC.
SADC could cut-off the supply lines of such critical commodities as Electricity and fuel for which Zimbabwe has huge amounts in unpaid bills anywhere. Paying these bills alone could soak up as much as two months of the country’s foreign currency supply. So far SADC leaders resisted taking such punitive actions against Mugabe’s regime even though Zimbabwe’s economic melt down has had a negative effect on their own national economy. There are many reasons for this top on that list is none of them have any democratic credential worth talking about. They are therefore reluctant to denounce Mugabe, a case of a pot calling the pan black!
If there is going to be any meaningful change in Zimbabwe then action with have to come from outside Africa, the UN.
The UN only has to come up with a strongly worded statement condemning Mugabe’s failure to hold free and fair elections and the acts of intimidation and violence he has unleashed in Zimbabwe. The statement could then urge all member state to exert all diplomatic and economic pressure on his regime to first stop the orgy of violence and then to allow International Supervised Interim Government to prepare for fresh free and fair elections.
The International community will only have to threaten to withhold some of the aid they are giving to some of Mugabe’s friends and they will fall in line double quick. Cut-off the supply lines of the luxurious the Zimbabwe ruling elite take for granted and they will know the game is up!
Ian Smith faced tougher economic sanctions after the UDI of 1965. His regime was a lot more resourceful and competent than Mugabe’s regime. The later handed over a viable and strong economy in 1980. The nearest thing to sanction against Mugabe is that he was not allowed to continue borrowing and not pay back! So his reckless spending has been his undoing. For Ian Smith it was losing the civil war that forced him to eat his own words “Not in a thousand years, will I accept black majority rule!” As for Mugabe his own economic incompetence will force him to eat his own words “Only God will take me out of Office!” He has had the economic noose round his own neck for years, let him to hang.
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